How VAT Rules test Contact Country

The tests for Contact Country are the most involved part of VAT Rules.  Unless the selection is n/a, the country of the registrant’s address evaluates as follows:

• Which address is evaluated?  The test uses the country associated with the registrant’s address, which appears on the Attendee tab of Event registration (Desktop) or on the Registrant page (Web), on the first step of the registration process.  This address defaults to the registrant’s preferred mail address, but the criteria evaluation always uses the address as it appears in the user interface, including any manual address overrides.
• Is the registrant outside the EU?  If the registrant’s country is not assigned a VAT Country Code in the Country Names table, then the country is considered to be outside the EU.
• Is the country blank?  If the registrant’s country is not populated, then it is assumed to be the same as the country of the “default organization”.  The default organization’s country is established according to the VAT Country Code assigned to it.
• Is the registrant within the EU?  The registrant’s country is considered in the EU if either:
  • The registrant’s country is populated and the country is assigned a VAT Country Code in the Country Names table, or
  • The registrant’s country is not populated and the registrant’s location is assumed to be the same as that of the default organization.
• What is the supplier country?  If the registrant’s country is determined to be within the EU, then the registrant’s country is either the same as the supplier country or a different country.  For this evaluation, iMIS must know what the supplier location is (i.e., which normally means the location from which the event is hosted).  The following logic derives the EU Country to be used as the supplier location:
  • If the event is assigned an entity (which should be the case if the event is being held in a country other than the home country of the organization), the supplier location is set to the VAT country code for that entity.
  • If the event is not assigned an entity, then the supplier location is set to the VAT country code of the “Default Organization”.
• Is the Registrant’s country the same as place of supplier or elsewhere in EU? Once the registrant’s country is determined to be in the EU and the supplier country location is known, then this test is simple.  If the VAT Country Code associated with the registrant’s address matches the VAT Country Code associated with the event supplier location, then the registrant location is considered “Same as place of supplier”.  If the VAT Country Codes do not match, then the registrant location is considered in an “Other EU country”.